Web Africa admittedly has the fastest network out there - no small feat given their relatively small size compared to the bigger guys - and for those where money is no object, WA is the better (if not best) choice out there.
BUT!
WA seems to be stuck in a bit of a rut whereby they realise they need to target the smaller consumer (who maybe only uses 1-2GB a month) so as to drive up revenues, hit a certain level of scale, and increase profitability, yet seem intent on driving price down through niche products that don't resonate with their target audience (download plus is not useful for the general consumer, adds complexity, and so on) for what seems to me to be so they can have a nice fat low price on their advertising. Forget the fact that often those prices require certain criteria to be met beforehand (per GB cost as low as R15 a GB! But you have to buy it in a 30GB chunk).
Most disappointing of all however is that WA still seems incapable of (or unconcerned with) providing a reasonable response to M-Web's uncapped, except to make unfounded remarks such as "performance is poor and quality suffers". What rubbish! Sure, initially it was touch and go, the SEACOM downtime mid-2010 helped matters naught, and the network freeze and poor planning resulting from the World Cup also caused plenty of headaches, but by and large for MOST GENERAL PURPOSES it works, and works well (which is exactly what average consumers want). For me, other than P2P and other non-general uses, the uncapped offering works 100%, often reaching full speeds, and has saved me thousands of rands over the course of 2010. Additionally it's worth keeping in mind that not even WA's superior network is full speed 24/7 on all protocols. In the end my true-life experience trumps WA's assumptions based on anecdotal evidence.
6 years ago I would have never imagined, what with WA being almost religiously concerned about the experience of the customer, engaging with the community and being on the leading edge of what can be done as an ISP, and M-Web being all about money, stagnating, and abusing the ignorance of its customers with incredibly high pricing, that 5 years later M-Web would end up being the champion of what the customer wants and WA would be the slow, lumbering, ineffectual beast it has become. Why is it that one company can go from **** to great in 5 years and another goes from great to, well, piss poor? WA would probably tell you it's all about the marketing and money (Naspers has lots of that), but I think that's just an easy excuse. The company is too spread out, has too many products, most of which it never really supports after the initial rollout, seems to be of the opinion that "more features done fast" is going to win them customers, and is downright monolithic in many ways (despite being a small company - at least in headcount).
Perhaps things will change? Perhaps in 2 months time WA will change their mindset, have the right people in charge, and have the ultimate product and we'll all forget 2010? Maybe. I can but hope, because right now son, I am disappoint.
Ask their Tech Support, they will forget; Ask WAmatt, he is too high in the sky but he might just give you another lame almost Juliass type of excuse.